Nowon-gu, AHFC Healthy City Award Progressive Prize & 6 Consecutive Years Winning Korea Healthy City Award Celebrate Double Joy

6 Consecutive Years Winning Korea Healthy City Award, Establishing as a Leading Local Government in Healthy City Sector
Simultaneous Award of WHO Western Pacific Healthy City Alliance Healthy City Award, Leaping to a Global Healthy City
‘Nowon-type Healthy City’ Project Aiming to Enhance Health Equity and Improve Residents' Quality of Life

Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it has been recognized as a global healthy city by simultaneously receiving the ‘WHO Western Pacific Healthy Cities Network Healthy City Award’ and the ‘Korea Healthy City Award (Best General Policy Award).’

The WHO Western Pacific Healthy Cities Network (242 cities from 11 countries) and the Korea Healthy Cities Association (104 cities domestically) are networks of healthy cities both domestically and internationally that select cities which improve physical, social, and economic determinants of health and attempt more effective methods to enhance citizens’ health levels, awarding them the ‘Healthy City Award.’

In particular, the ‘Healthy City Progress Award’ from the WHO Western Pacific Healthy Cities Network is notable for evaluating the overall capacity of a city, including infrastructure development, leadership of the head of the organization, multi-sectoral collaboration, utilization of research and information, training and education, and innovation.

Since establishing the Healthy City Team in 2018, the district has been striving to create an active daily living environment and promote physical activity. Through these efforts, the walking practice rate, which was the lowest in Seoul at 47.7% in 2017, improved to 69.6% in 2022, securing the top position in walking practice rate for three consecutive years.

Additionally, by introducing the health impact assessment for the first time nationwide and adopting a systematic approach with an urban health monitoring system, the district has incorporated health elements into all policies, strengthened participatory approaches through the development of healthy city agendas by neighborhood, operation of healthy city supporters, and resident education.

The district has developed healthy policy alternatives through an advisory group composed of experts in health, welfare, urban planning, transportation, and environment. It has hired dedicated personnel for non-rotational positions to stably operate the policy development-application-evaluation process and secured a dedicated budget for healthy city projects to continue systematic project management.

As a result of continuously undertaking innovative challenges to embed health throughout policies rather than treating health as an individual issue, Nowon-gu was honored to simultaneously receive the highest award at the ‘Korea Healthy City Award.’ This year marks the sixth consecutive year that the district has won the Korea Healthy City Award, establishing itself as a leading representative city in Korea’s healthy city movement.

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “I am very pleased that Nowon-gu has won the Healthy City Award for six consecutive years and simultaneously received the WHO Western Pacific Healthy Cities Network Healthy City Award. We will continue to prepare policies for the health of our residents without change and create a healthy city without discrimination.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.